The use of bronze mirrors in China goes at least as far back as to the Chou Dynasty, but it seems to be the general opinion that no specimens from this early period have as yet come to light. Neither the Po Ku Tu Yu nor the Chin Shih So, which contain illustrations of a great number of mirrors, attribute to any of them an earlier date than the Han Dynasty, and Koop states in his recently published book, "Ancient Chinese Bronzes," that "of the numerous extant examples (and virtually the same may be said of those recorded in the Chinese catalogues) there is not one bearing any ornament that can by any stretch of the imagination be assigned to an earlier period than the Han, while even the few plain backed specimens known have never been considered to belong to any other than the same or a later period."
On of the accompanying illustrations is from a specimen which must be considered as very early, probably antedating the Han and possibly the Ch'in as well. It was unearthed in that section of the Huai Valley which formed the last retreat of the rulers of the once mighty Ch'u State. This district has proved fairly rich in finds of minor bronzes of exquisite workmanship and exhibiting a style of decoration which seems to have been but rarely used elsewhere.
There were at least three methods used by the artisans of that district in bringing out the design, but I am unfortunately only able to illustrate one, although all three will be briefly dealt with.
One method was to delineate the ornaments by means of narrow grooves, which were formed by thin walls of bronze set perpendicularly to the surface. The grooves and the surrounding areas were then filled with coloured minerals.
In another method the design, which was geometric in character, was incised in the metal. The incisions are quite fine and sparingly used. It is either employed on animals in full relief, which form part of some large bronze, or on specimens to which are attached fragments of animals.
In the third method the ornamentation is in relief and generally covers the entire surface. This is always the case when the most common of the motifs, the spiral, is used. This particular kind of spiral is not unlike the head of a bird of prey with the inner winding, which is always in high relief, forming the eye, and the outer shaped like the beak. I have seen a bronze head of a bird in full relief from the Huai Valley, which so closely resembled the spiral, that I feel convinced that the latter evolved from the head. The beak is generally broad and short, and is as a rule filled with geometric figures in low relief. I have, however, come across one variety with a slender elongated back on several mountings to sword scabbards. The resemblance of this latter form of head to ornamented knife handles from Minoussinsk is quite striking, and one cannot but wonder if the two are related. Occasionally other motives are found amongst the spirals, but they are of minor importance and seem to have been applied with the sole motive of breaking the monotony. Some specimens are coated with black or brown lacquer and others show traces of beaten gold. That at least two of the methods were contemporaneous is evident from the fact that one occasionally finds both employed on the same bronze.
The numerous specimens which I have obtained from the Huai Valley comprise weapons and parts of such, horse trappings, chariot and house fittings, ornaments for the dress, and objects made for interment with the corpse. The great majority appears to form one group representing one sphere of culture and but a few do not seem to fit in.
When and where the ornamental styles developed we do not know, but a brief outline of the history of the town, where many of the bronzes were unearthed, has made it possible to determine the age of the objects themselves.
It was made capital twice in the course of a century. The first time was in 248 B.C. when K'ao Lieh, the king of the Ch'u, moved his residence there. Twenty years later Ch'u was annexed by Ch'in and the city lost its distinction. It did not, however, remain in obscurity for very long. In the year 197 B.C., Ying Pu, who was given the title of Prince of Huai Nan, chose it for his capital and it remained as such for almost a century. It is only reasonable to assume that at least some of the specimens date back to those two periods, which means that the ornamental motifs were contemporaneous with the Ch'u King dom. As has already been pointed out, one of the styles, I am now refering to the spiral pattern, was but little, if at all, used in other regions, and it would therefore seem as if we had good reason for a geographical subdivision of what is known as the Chou art. This subdivision might on historical and geographical grounds be called the Ch'u art, and the commonest motif, the spiral in high relief, the Ch'u motif. It will here be shown to what extent the Ch'u art influenced that of the Han.
The majority of the illustrations here given are from mirrors which have been unearthed in the Husi Valley. The mirrors are all very thin) some of them might almost be called paper thin. The pierced knob in the centre, through which the cord which served as a handle was passed, is semi-cylinderical and fluted, and quite unlike the knobs on typical Han mirrors, which are almost always hemispherical. The fluted loop also occurs on ornamental bronze disks from the Ch'u State. Here it served as support for a ring shaped handie. The mirrors reproduced in Figs. 1 and 2 might date back to the time of the Ch'u Kingdom. The rest are probably of a later date.
The earliest mirror from the Huai Valley I have seen is quite plain and therefore not reproduced here. It is very thin, slightly convex, and, as already stated, quite plain, even lacking the circular band, which, so to speak, frames the design on all ornamental mirrors. The loop in the center is semi-cylindrical and fluted. It probably dates back to the third century B.C.
In Fig. 1 is reproduced a mirror which for several reasons must be considered as an early specimen of the ornamental type. It might almost be called the father of all decorated mirrors. If we examine the illustration carefully through a magnifying glass, we shall find a number of straight lines which cross one another at right angles and which are so spaced that, but for the embossed center, they would form rectangles. It will be noticed that two of the lines would, if extended, pass through the center. Others are quite close to the rim, while of the rest only V- shaped corners are visible. This has a bearing on the origin of the so called T L V mirrors and will be discussed later. Each of these mutilated rectangles is decorated with Ch'u spirals in fairly high relief which cover the entire surface. This, however, is one of the main features of the Ch'u style, and is one of the reasons why I have considered the mirror as Ch'u.A comparison between any two of the rectangles will disclose the fact that the design on one is an exact duplicate of that on the other. This could not possibly have been accomplished without the use of a stamp. Knowing this it will now be possible to follow step by step the process employed by the artisan in making his mould. Being a Ch'u man he naturally chose the spiral for his subject of ornamenation. This he carved or modelled on a rectangular stamp, probably made of clay, and with this stamp he made a series of impressions in the mould till a sufficient area was covered. The stamp was never reversed during the process but always kept in the same position. The mould was now rectangular in outline. In order to obtain the conventional circular contour the artisan made use of the most convenient method he could think of, a ring shaped stamp. This had to be pressed so deep into the mould that the portion of the design it overlapped became obliterated. This impression would therefore on the mirror appear as high relief. There now remained the knob in the center. It is fairly certain that, if he had attempted to make an impression with a knob shaped stamp, he would have damaged the design to some extent. To overcome this the stamp was set on a circular disk which would obliterate any cracks that might have occurred. This gave an embossed center to the mirror. It is thus evident that the thickened rim, a feature of every ornamental mirror, and the embossed center found on a great many, have a technical origin. This again indicates that the Ch'u people were the first to decorate their mirrors.
Although use was made of a stamp no attempt was made to disguise the fact, on the contrary, the joints were accentuated by means of a fluting of the edges, which makes them resemble frames.
The mould of the mirror reproduced in Fig. 2 was also made by means of stamps. The main design consists of Ch'u spirals, but the rectangular impressions are not fluted, and the stamp was reversed for each alternate row, possibly with the intention of rendering the joints as inconspicuous as possible. It is perhaps with the same object in view that the four T-shaped figures have been added. They project from the rim, meet in a square round the centre, and are so arranged as to obscure as much of the joints as possible.
The centre is more elaborately treated than on the preceding mirror, a star shaped ornament having been added. This is composed of four circles set crosswise round the knob and with that part of the periphery furthest from the centre drawn out into points. Such rings set amongst spirals are not uncommon on Ch'u bronzes. It has been suggested that they served as settings for coloured stones, a theory which seems quite plausible. From this star the flower shaped centre found on many Han mirrors must have developed.
The rim also differs from that seen on Fig. 1. It is almost of the same width, but, whereas the rim of the latter slopes from the inner edge towards the periphery, the sloping on this one is towards the centre and concave in outline. This particular kind of rim was probably in vogue in the Huai Valley for a short period only, and does not seem to have been popular with Han artists of other localities. It is, however, very commonly met with on Ming and later mirrors.
We will now turn to another type which represents a somewhat more advanced stage in the evolution of the mirror. It is reproduced in Fig. 3. No joints indicating the use of rectangular stamps are here visible, and we may therefore conclude that this primitive method was no longer in use when the mirror was made.
It is an early example of an important group which was very popular during the Han Dynasty, and to which Koop has given the characteristic name of the T L V group from the four sets of "letters " which project from the rim and from the central square. The "letters are all of them fluted, and, if we compare the V-s with the V-shaped corners cut off by the rim on Fig. 1, we find them identical in shape and almost so in size. It will also be noticed that the legs forming the V-s are in straight lines with the horizontals of the T-s. These facts combined would surely lead one to believe that the T L V design originated from some such primitive mirror as the one depicted in Fig. 1. All we need to do to the design to obtain the T-s and the V-s would be to remove certain portions of the "frames." This does not explain the presence of the L-s, but they are probably rudimentary joints as well. The similarity between the square frame and the one noticed on Fig. 2 may be a coincidence only, but it is also possible that the latter suggested the former.
The ornaments which occupy the space round the frame and the "letters," and which, by the way, are not characteristic of the T L V mirrors which one usually sees in collections, are composed of single and compound spirals. Some of them are fluted and almost all have the edges accentuated. The single spirals are quite similar to the elongated spirals mentioned above as occuring on mountings to sword scabbards. The background is filled with minute hatchings, which, however, are not visible in the illustration.
Although the ornamentation on one half of the mirror is quite clear cut and distinct, it is so badly effaced on the other as to be barely visible. This is not due to decomposition in the soil but must have happened in the mould. It looks as if a fabric of some kind had been accidentally swept over part of the mould, damaging the same and giving the mirror its streaky appearance. As the mirror was obviously faulty when new, it is hardly likely that it was imported from any great distance, and we may therefore assume that it was made in the district where it was unearthed, the Huai Valley. We have, therefore, sufficient reason to look upon it as an offspring of the Ch'u art. That it does not date back to the time of the Ch'u Kingdom is evident from the nature of the sentence partly visible on the frame. Dr. V. K. Ting, to whom I sent a rubbing of the mirror, and who kindly submitted the same to the noted archaeologist, Mr. Lo Chen Yu, wrote me that the sentence is a typical Han motto. He also informed me that Mr. Lo has seen mirrors with almost identical ornamentation from Shensi. This is interesting as it shows that the type was not confined to the Huai Valley. There must have been intermediary stages between mirrors 1 and 3, and it is not impossible that the design on the latter was conceived elsewhere, although all the component parts are of Ch'u origin.
The mirror which is broken into several bits is of white bronze and somewhat thicker than the foregoing. It probably dates back to the early part of the Han Dynasty.
Figs. 4 and 5 show two mirrors from the Huai Valley of very thin metal. The main ornaments consist of four S-shaped curves which have been formed by combining two elongated Ch'u spirals. On one of them the entire curves are in relief with the edges slightly accentuated, on the other they are only outlined. As the curves alone did not seem to satisfy the artisan's desire for a well filled surface, the zone they occupy received a fluting as well. The mirror reproduced in Fig. 5 has in addition four independent "eyes" which separate the curves. The design is framed by a star, which, as far as my experience goes, is foreign to the Ch'u art. The same kind of star may be seen on Fig. 6, which illustrates another mirror of the thin variety. Here the main motif is composed of spirals of the cloud pattern, and the star occupies a position midway between the origin and the periphery. It thus forms part of the design, whereas, in Figs. 4 and 5 it only frames the same. It would therefore seem as if the more central position were the earlier.
Fig. 7 shows a subsequent version of the S-curve type. The mirror which is not from the Huai Valley is much clumsier than the foregoing with a very thick rim and a hemispherical knob, but the ornamentation is so similar to that found on Figs. 4 and 5, that there cannot be any doubt from where it developed.
The curves, which like those on the prototype are outlined only, are much broader in proportion to their lengths, and have lost some of their symmetry, one of the windings being longer than the other. Several appendages have been added, and a few tiny bird and leaf like ornaments are scattered about. They have, however, lost the two "eyes" which in Figs. 4 and 5 make it possible to trace the origin of the S-curve. The four independent "eyes " are still present and command far more attention being embossed. The fluting finally has now been confined to two narrow independent zones.To judge from the many examples extant this type must have been very common during the Han Dynasty and distributed over a wide area. The style of decoration, broad S-curves in outline with appendages and surrounded by smaller curves, was not confined to mirrors only. Something very similar may be seen on Fig. 2, pl. XI of Laufer's "Chinese pottery of the Han Dynasty," where it occurs on a granary urn of pottery.
That the animal style, so popular during the Han Dynasty, grew out of the S-curve is fairly evident if we compare Figs. 7 and 8. The curves have here developed into two birds and two quadrupeds, but the bodies still retain the shape of an S. The style of delineating them is also adhered to. The tooth border on the rim probably grew out of the star shaped border previously discussed.
Finally, in Fig. 9 we see reproduced the last link in that chain which started with the first mirror under consideration.
It is a poor example of the T L V type, but it gives one a general idea of the composition, the square frame round the centre, the "letters" projecting from the frame and from the rim, and the animals occupying the zone between the square and the rim. According to Hirth, Ueher fremde Einflusse in der Chinesische Kunst, this probably originated in the second or first century B.C.Although many intermediary links may be missing I think that a sufficient number of types have been reproduced to enable the reader to follow the successive stages in the evolution of the earlier mirrors. The history of the last two centuries n.c. might furnish answer to the question why such sweeping changes occured in the realm of art.
It would seem as if the transition from the geometric style as observed in, for instance, Figs. 5 and 7, to the animal style did not take place in the Huai Valley, although the art of that district did influence it to a great extent. A number of finds from that region indicate that a totally different style developed there.
Fig. 10 illustrates such a find. The rim has unfortunately been carefully removed, but the rest of the mirror is fairly intact and the ornaments clearly distinguishable. The motif, which is repeated three times, consists of a fragmentary animal and a mountain scene. The head of the animal with its gaping mouth and long whiskers probably represents that of a tiger. Of the rest of the body only the two front legs are reproduced each provided with a long curved claw. Behind the animal there is the representation of a range of mountains with its peaks enveloped in lozenge shaped clouds. The rest of the surface, including the central zone, is occupied by compound spirals of the type we noticed on Fig. 3. The background is covered with minute shallow hatchings, which, however, do not show up in the illustration. Similarily treated mountains constitute the main feature of the important group of incense burners of jade, bronze or pottery known as Pu Shan Du or Hill Censers. A number of such vessels are figured in "Jade" and "Chinese Pottery of the Han Dynasty" by Laufer, and are by him considered as having originated during the reign of Wu Ti (140-86 B.C.). This might be the period to which we may ascribe the mirror. It is probably not earlier.
Fig. 11 shows another mirror with a somewhat similar motif. The head of the animal is turned back over the shoulder, and the gaping mouth is provided with two enormous tusks. Only two legs are brought out each with a long claw. The rest of the body is dissolved into spirals. The lozenge shaped figures are also present, but they do not longer symbolize clouds. There are certain similarities between this animal and the archaic representation of the dragon, as occuring on a number of sacrificial vessels of the Chou Dynasty, which seem to indicate that the artisan had this ornament in mind when he made his design. The background is filled with ornaments consisting of shallow concentric circles surrounded by lozenges. The metal is white.
In Fig. 12 we see another version of the two-legged dragon like creature with gaping mouth and whiskered face. It is, however, here repeated four times, and the animals are not interlaced but separated by figures resembling ears of corn. These are composed of spirals of the Ch'u pattern. The ground work is similar to that in the foregoing mirror. Figs. 13 and 14 show other examples of Huai Valley mirrors, derived from types already discussed. Both have fluted loops, and both are of almost paper-thin bronze.
The mirror reproduced in Fig. 15 was unearthed in the Huai Valley and shows the glossy grey patina characteristic of that region. The design is, however, not Ch'u in character, and it is therefore probable that it represents another sphere of culture. The background is filled with spirals of the cloud pattern arranged so as to form lozenges. The edges of the same are granulated. There are clear indications that the design was produced in the mould by means of a small rectangular stamp, and this would point to an early date. As there are slight differences in the design of the dragons they must have been moulded by hand. They are probably early representations of the winged dragon.
It will have been noticed that of the mirrors described in the foregoing all but three have the backs almost entirely covered with ornaments, and further that the main design is in high fiat relief and the background filled with figures in very low relief. (This does not apply to mirror Fig. 1, the design of which is archaic.) This characteristic must, I think, be looked upon as belonging to the earliest types of ornamental mirrors only. The styles seen on Figs. 7, 8, and 9 are somewhat later. A surface crowded with ornaments is a feature of still later mirrors, for instance, the "Sea Horse and Grape" mirrors which are generally considered as post Han. The ornaments, which are in high relief, are, however, here not flat but rounded and the flat groundwork is entirely lacking.
unless otherwise indicated